Laser Cannons Coming to an F-16 Near You

dxprog writes "Reuters is reporting that the US Pentagon is designing a laser cannon that's small enough to fit onto a fighter jet yet powerful enough to knock out a missile. "The High Energy Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS), being designed by the Pentagon's central research and development agency, will weigh just 750 kg (1,650 lb) and measures the size of a large fridge." Now all we need to do is make fighter jets space worthy for that true Star Wars feel."

let's just get this out of the way:

[WellAren'tYouJustThe]

Will there be friggin sharks on them too?

Re:let's just get this out of the way:

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Will there be friggin sharks on them too?

Who needs a shark when you've got a veritech?

Kids today...

Re:let's just get this out of the way:

[BJZQ8]

All this has been thought through in the 80's, when SDI was being developed. The amount of energy directed onto one spot is so intense it will burn through anything less than a polished mirror. Some people used to think that making ICBM's reflective, or twirl in flight, would solve things...but it's kind of like pirouetting in front of a 50 caliber rifle. These lasers are nothing to mess around with, they're thousands of watts projected onto a very small spot. The thermal shock alone is mind-numbing.

Re:let's just get this out of the way:

[sumdumass]

Well another school of thought is that we don't even have to burn a hole in the missle-aircraft.

It apears that we can cause the propelent to expload before we actualy cause damage inside the shell of the aircraft. This was the basis of the ground based lasers and the ones mounted in the jumbo jets. I guess the trick would be doing this before the warhead is armed and mounting a laser capable of this task on a jet fighter might give the extra advantage.

At less then 1700lbs, this setup well within weapons pay

Re:let's just get this out of the way:

[Mysticalfruit]

Actually the F-22 Raptor already has a laser system that's been designed for it and [I think it] fits in place of bombbay doors.

The laser is ultraviolet, thus it would allow an F22 to loiter in an area and attack ground targetes (Geneva conventions state that we can't attack people with lasers) However, we can cut the truck they're driving in half and thus detonating the fuel tank...

Not the F-22, or the F-16

[TamMan2000]

Actually the F-22 Raptor already has a laser system that's been designed for it and [I think it] fits in place of bombbay doors.

It is the F-35 or the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) that has a laser on the drawing boards.

The thing about a laser system like this is that it need a lot of electricity to run, and the vast majority of fighter aircraft do not produce the kind of juice needed to run one of these. The thing that makes the JSF capable of handling a system like this, is the way the VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) version of the aircraft was designed. Unlike previous VTOL fighters (AV-8 - Harrier and the Boeing consept for JSF) which use a series of nozels to redirect thrust the engine was already making to get vertical thrust, the Lockheed JSF (the one that was selected) has a secondary fan, driven by a shaft from the main engine and door that open above and below the fan.

Using the lift fan in the VTOL plane means that the engine in the CTOL (Conventional Take Off and Landing) and CV (Carrier Varient) has the capacity built in to drive a shaft, and the aircraft themselves have a lot of room right in front of the engine/behind the cockpit. This shaft can then drive a large generator to fire the laser.

I used to be an analyst at the company that builds the engines for the F-22 and the JSF. I worked on both programs.

The laser is ultraviolet, thus it would allow an F22 to loiter in an area and attack ground targetes (Geneva conventions state that we can't attack people with lasers) However, we can cut the truck they're driving in half and thus detonating the fuel tank...

Conventional fuels (gas/diesel) do not detonate unless they are vaporized, or atomised. They will burn pretty fast though.

Re:let's just get this out of the way:

[HTL2001]

"...will weigh just 750 kg (1,650 lb) and measures the size of a large fridge."

thats a bit to heavy

then again... suppose 2 sharks carry it together... (to lazy to check monty python quote)

Re:let's just get this out of the way:

[Daetrin]

We have both this and the shape changing planes [slashdot.org] posted on the same day and the first thing you think of is if they have sharks on them? Now if you'd asked if they Transformed into sharks...

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[Rei]

I love your writing style - it reminds me of a Star Wars into crawl.

Episode IV: A New Lack Of Hope

It is a period of civil war. Rebel guerrillas, striking from hidden bases, have won their first victory against the PENTAGON. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to America's ultimate weapon, the MISSILE FRIGATE, an armored aircraft with enough power to destroy an entire peaceful wedding party.

Pursued by the sinister agents of CONGRESS, Princess Raghad Hussein races home aboard her taxi, custodian to the stolen plans that can dominate her people and change type of tyrannical rule in force in the country.

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[jericho4.0]

See, the thing about soldiers is; they need to kill people. As a society far removed from our warrior class, that still seems to need to fight wars, we are uncomfortable seeing this perceived callousness. We are collectively shocked when we see photos of US soldiers abusing prisoners, but then demand that those same soldiers find the aggression needed to hunt down humans and kill them. It is impossible for most psyches to kill a human they have not dehumanized.

The answer to this paradox, IMO, is that war i

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[Liam Slider]

The answer to this paradox, IMO, is that war is simply incompatible with civil society.

Problem with this is...not all societies are civil. And if the civil ones give up the means with which to defend themselves, the uncivil ones will destroy them.

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[Dread_ed]

"It is impossible for most psyches to kill a human they have not dehumanized

You give people alot of credit where none is due. People do not have to dehumanize anyone to kill them. Case in point? Most murders (76%) are comitted by people that know the victim. 22% of the murders in 2002 were comitted by family members.

Logically it would semm to be much more difficult to "dehumanize" (whatever the $%^@ that referrs to in a psychological sense) someone that you know personally than a total stranger. Seems to me like it takes knowing someone to be able to to kill them, not the other way around.

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[nametaken]

war is simply incompatible with civil society

Some would say that civil societies won't exist if they're not willing to make war.

Re:Wow

[jericho4.0]

How about "the thing about soldiers is, they are needed to kill people"?

I didn't mean to suggest that they are themselves are less human or mindless, just that the fact remain that they must kill people, and that that can not be sanitized.

Infantry use derogatory names for the enemy, they hoot and holler after a kill, and they do lots of other things that people don't like to think about. The OP thought that was inappropriate.

Yeah, the last bit was pretty trite. How about "There will always be a disconnec

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[jericho4.0]

It was badly worded. I meant soldiers are needed to kill, not that they have a need to kill.

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[ScentCone]

Torture and violations of human rights didn't happen simply because we taught a our guys to kill

Right. It happened because some people are assholes, and some of them got jobs with the National Guard, just like some got jobs with the Post Office, and some work the cubicle down the hall from you. Further, some are in the chain of command supervising (or not, in this case) the people pulling guard duty at a prison. If your theory is correct, and this is policy all way from the top, there would be many, many

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[indifferent children]

I agree that war is part of our basic nature, it is born from the failure of politics.

Or perhaps war is the inevitable result of the existence of politics. Politics is necessarily competitive and adversarial. The rewards are immense and the most desireable seats are naturally limited (the smallest bodies governing the largest areas have the most concentrated power and the highest prestige).

Politicians need to be seen to be "doing something". Successfully governing a quiet Utopia will be boring and loo

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[lga]

This weeks New Scientist [newscientist.co.uk] has some interesting statistics that will be relevant here. (The article isn't online, unfortunately.)

"researchers have documented how soldiers will often go to great lengths to avoid firing directly at enemy soldiers, especially if they can seem them - and the distress they suffer when they do kill.

A famous example is the Battle of Gettysburg, where thousands of soldiers on both sides loaded their weapons over and over to avoid having to fire them. Similarly, during the second world war, S.L.A. Marshall, a US army historian, found that on average only 15 to 20 per cent of American infantry troops actually fired at the enemy when they had the oportunity to do so."

The article goes on to talk about how the US army managed to increase the firing rate in later wars by de-humanising the enemy and training soldiers to shoot on impulse.

The main articles are about the Post-Traumatic Stress suffered later by the soldiers as a result of this.

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[operagost]

A famous example is the Battle of Gettysburg, where thousands of soldiers on both sides loaded their weapons over and over to avoid having to fire them.

This argument is fallacious because it assumes the only possible cause for recovered rifles having multiple loads is intent by the bearer. The battlefield was noisy and frightening, so a perfectly valid premise held by many historians is that the soldiers failed to realize that their weapons did not fire. This happened on other battlefields- not just Get

Re:I hope not. Here is why.

[rumblin'rabbit]

It's bad enough to militarily compete with China, a country where the people outweigh and outnumber Americans ten fold.

Outnumber definitely. Outweigh never! Americans are the most substantial people on earth, and they've got the jelly rolls to prove it. China simply can't compete in the corpulence compartment, dude.

By the way, you write like a schizophrenic dope head. Nothing personal. I'm just glad you're in the NRA.

Re:let's just get this out of the way:

[UnapprovedThought]

General: How'd the flight test go, Colonel?
Colonel: Well, we got some good news and some bad news, sir.
General: OK, what are the bad news?
Colonel: Due to some unexpected turbulence, we missed the target and had a friendly fire incident.
General: *Curse*
General: And the good news?
Colonel: The good news are that your car rental's been upgraded to a convertible without touching the budget.

Great...

[Seoulstriker]

Now they just need to be mounted on those damn sharks.

Re:Great...

[Tribbin]

Dr. Evil: You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?

Number Two: Sea Bass.

Dr. Evil: [pause] Right.

Number Two: They're mutated sea bass.

Dr. Evil: Are they ill tempered?

Number Two: Absolutely.

Dr. Evil: Oh well, that's a start.

Will they make noise in space?

[spun]

Once we get them into space, will they make roaring, whooshing noises and manuever just like they did in atmosphere? 'Cause otherwise, forget about it.

Re:Will they make noise in space?

[zxnos]

true on the roaring and whooshing... ...but doesnt it make sense to have them manuever in space the same as in the atmosphere? that way a pilot doesnt have to think about what medium he is in. i think it would be easier for the pilot if both are the same.

Re:Will they make noise in space?

[blincoln]

but doesnt it make sense to have them manuever in space the same as in the atmosphere? that way a pilot doesnt have to think about what medium he is in. i think it would be easier for the pilot if both are the same.

It would take a ludicrous amount of fuel to make a spacecraft fly like a jet fighter.

It would also prevent the pilot from doing many maneuvers that can only be performed in space.

Of course, by the time we have genuine spacefighters, piloted fightercraft will be a thing of the distant past. Remote

HELLADS?

[Anakron]

The High Energy Laser Area Defense System
So what's the other L for?
I swear, the military just loves acronyms, whether they make sense or not! And what's an area defense system?

Re:HELLADS?

[Stonehand]

Area defense = defense of a whole area. It doesn't mean that it's firing massively wide beams designed to fry whole areas (well, volumes) of space.

Re:HELLADS?

[Zocalo]

So what's the other L for?

"Liquid". HELLADS actually stands for "High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System", despite what Yahoo! would have you believe. Maybe Yahoo! are employing ex-Slashdot editors now; they do seem to copy everything else Google does... ;)

Re:HELLADS?

[deglr6328]

FYI this is NOT a liquid laser. The term "liquid laser" is barely ever used in laser research and when it is, its used to referr to DYE lasers which are absolutely not what is being discussed here. It could concievably be used to describe a chemical laser where the chemicals are liquid before being reacted to lase but this would be incorrect because lasers are typically classified based on the phase of the medium which undergoes lasing. In the case of the chemical laser the lasing medium is a plasma formed in a reaction chamber by the mixed, previously liquid, chemicals. It's a gas laser. From what I can tell here though, neither of these things is what is being proposed for the HELLADS system. It looks like [military.com] what they're trying to do is match the index of refraction of a cooling liquid to the index of refraction of the slabs of lasing material in a SOLID STATE laser such as Nd:glass. Thereby allowing the efficient removal of heat from the laser material while it is firing and while also preserving the quality of the beam. I would be willing to bet [qpeak.com] they are looking at using ytterbium-doped strontium fluoroapatite (Yb:S-FAP) slabs immersed in a very dense transparent flowing liquid (perhaps even a molten salt like NaNO3) which is optically pumped by specifically tuned solid state diode lasers.

4 out of 5 swinging dicks recommend...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

4 out of 5 swinging dicks recommend more steel plates for their humvees, not another toy for the flyboys.
 

Re:4 out of 5 swinging dicks recommend...

[susano_otter]

Look at it this way: The military is a massive institution, that takes decades to complete any major change in its thinking and acting (this is as it should be, I think).

Today's Humvee armor problem stems from the parameters for the Humvee project, which were laid down fifteen or more years ago.

Since then, the nature of battle has changed dramatically, and the kinds of missions the military now faces aren't really ideally suited to the Humvee project the military had already committed to.

So in another ten

nature of battle

[ucblockhead]

So you're saying that in prior wars, the enemy didn't try to blow up vehicles with boobie traps?

Re:4 out of 5 swinging dicks recommend...

[shmlco]

We had to adapt to win the Korean War, and the War In Vietnam, and... ah.... wait.

Re:4 out of 5 swinging dicks recommend...

[TomSawyer]

So what are your qualifications, anyway?

Dude, he's totally got xxx in front of his name and after. He's a total bad ass and you sir are out matched.

Re:4 out of 5 swinging dicks recommend...

[CrowScape]

High energy lasers have very promising defensive purposes, such as being able to shoot down/burn up mortar and artilery fire as well as RPGs. You know, many of the things that the underdogs like to use in asymetric warfare? Being able to mount these things onto a fighter is a good step towards getting these things on the ground and in the field.

Re:4 out of 5 swinging dicks recommend...

[CrowScape]

So, if you can't develop a system that solves all your problems, it's useless? Man, you must curl up in a little ball in the morning, unable to function because you can't find that one tool that will brush your teeth and wipe your ass.

Re:4 out of 5 swinging dicks recommend...

[CharlieG]

Actually, at this point, almost all the Humvees are "Up armored", the problem is, as usual, this has lead to a response - less ak47 type ambushes, more IEDs. And as other, even heavier armored vehicles have shown up, the IEDs have gotten bigger - They refer to them as N-bangers where N = 1 or more - 1-banger is one shell/mine etc, 2 is 2 etc. The reports that I'm hearing say they have mostly given up on 1 bangers, and 2,3,4s are the most common

Action leads to reaction, and no matter HOW much armor you put on something, you can always penetrate it - just takes a bigger bang. The say that some of the bigger IEDs actually pick something like a APC and throw them a couple of hundred yards, and up-armored HUMVEES just get blown to bits

Re:4 out of 5 swinging dicks recommend...

[afidel]

Yep, the fact that the 14 Ohio marines that were killed earlier this month were in an Armored Amphibious Vehicle should show you that a Humvee, no matter how uparmored, stands no chance against the bombs being employed.

Nice,

[seaniqua]

But will it cook a Jiffy Pop container 20' in diameter?

Re:Nice,

[shmlco]

Only if you can also come up with a spinning phase-conjugate mirror AND manage to switch the targeting computer's rom.

Re:Nice,

[Martin Blank]

The system will probably work like the ABL. A low-power targeting laser makes the first contact with the target. This allows for target correction and ionization of a channel for the main beam to use. Once the target is confirmed (probably a fraction of a second), the main laser fires, with virtually no chance for the target to deviate.

Depending on its uses and where it's aimed, there's a good chance that the beam will simply fire off hamrlessly into space, presuming that enough of it makes it through th

Re:Nice,

[iamlucky13]

Yep. I think they call it "salvage fused." It always kills me when I see a movie where the missile flies circles after an airplane. If it doesn't hit on the first pass, it'll never have enough energy for a second chance, so rather than risk it coming down on friendly or civillian heads, modern missiles self-destruct. I think the term actually comes from the idea that you don't want the enemy to be able to salvage the weapon for their own use or study.

Incidentally, the ancient Romans did the same thing. T

Borealis?

[Stanistani]

Anyone ever come up with what the Aurora [abovetopsecret.com] was powered by?

I'd love to see a pulsed-fusion plane...

...mit laser cannons!

Laser cannon my eye

[jlowery]

NO, NO! NOT MY EYES! AAAAAaaaarrrrrghhhh.

Okay, now I have to enter this stuff to avoid the caps filter. Talk about spoiling a joke....

Power Source?

[CorporalKlinger]

They can put these things up there, but how will they really be powered? 15kW of energy is a lot to expect from any sort of battery system, unless the weapon can only be used once... Next they'll want to strap a nuclear reactor on the fighter planes to power the next version of the laser (150kW). And if they do have a way to power this for multiple shots, why isn't that same energy storage technology being used in my damn car so I don't have to pay $3 a gallon to fill up the tank?

Battery system?

[Vengeance]

How about a honkin' big jet turbine engine?

Actually, I seem to recall reading (albeit in a 'Popular Mechanics' or some such light fare) about the larger all-liquid versions. These things apparently derived their power from a chemical reaction, the reactants being stored in big tanks. I believe that was a big reason for needing a 747-sized platform.

Re:Power Source?

[ShadyG]

It's just a wild guess, but maybe you can have one if you also have security clearance, $47 million, and room for a refrigerator in your car.

Re:Power Source?

[syukton]

150 kilowatts is 201 horsepower. (conversion link [google.com]; 1 horsepower = approximately 745.7 watts)

F-16 Aircraft use a powerplant ranging from 15,000 to 19,000 (28,000 to 32,000 with afterburner) pounds force of thrust.

To convert between thrust and horsepower, use this formula: [(Thrust in lbs x Speed in mph) / 550] x 1.47 = horsepower (formula link [americanjetcars.com])

So let's assume an airspeed of 400 miles per hour.
Without afterburners:
Low: ((15,000 * 400) / 550) * 1.47 = 16,036.3636
High: ((19,000 * 400) / 550) * 1.47 = 20,312.7273
And with afterburners:
Low: ((28,000 * 400) / 550) * 1.47 = 29,934.5455
High: ((32,000 * 400) / 550) * 1.47 = 34,210.9091

So let's say about 18,000 horsepower on average regularly and 32,000 horsepower on average with afterburners.

A 150 kilowatt laser requires 1.1% of the total engine power produced (on average) by an F-16 turbofan engine, and 0.6% of the engine's power with afterburners engaged.

In other words, I think they've got all the power they need.

Re:Power Source?

[t35t0r]

You are uninformed. 150W is the output power. In order to get the lasing medium to actually *LASE* requires lots more input power than 150W. In addition to hit a target miles away and put 150W of power on it for any period of time requires even more input power. Depending on the lasing medium and what sort of laser it actually is (pumped, double pumped, etc) they will require considerably much more power than 150W.

Not to be too pointed but...

[sterno]

Will these new laser cannons be able to shoot box cutters as well?

Missile defense

[robogun]

I can see the headline now: Air Force "reflects" on decision to purchase sexy new laser, after a test backfires when attempting to shoot down a mirrored missile...

& yes, defending against laser is that simple.

Re:Missile defense

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, defending against a laser isn't that simple.

You ever felt how hot a mirror gets in sunlight? Well, a lot of the light that hits it is converted to heat. Even a highly mirrored surface would get incredibly hot under a 150Kw laser beam. A missle is essentially a flying tube under a lot of stress, so a small non-uniform structural weakness would have the capability to tear it apart if it was travelling at high speed....

Re:Missile defense

[Spudley]

I can see the headline now: Air Force "reflects" on decision to purchase sexy new laser, after a test backfires when attempting to shoot down a mirrored missile...

& yes, defending against laser is that simple.

So how come Queen Amidala's ship had such difficulty getting past the blockade?

Re:Missile defense

[rgmoore]

& yes, defending against laser is that simple.

Do you actually have some evidence to back that claim up? I thought not. The people who come up with ideas like military lasers are actually smart enough to have thought of things like mirrored surfaces on enemy missiles. They wouldn't have put all that time, effort, and money into the project if it could be stopped by such a simple countermeasure.

Common mirrors are not 100% efficient; they absorb some fraction of the light rather than reflecting it. The actual reflecting layer is also quite thin. The small amount of absorbance is enough that a high energy laser will destroy an ordinary mirror very quickly, at which point the remaining energy is absorbed efficiently. The kind of extremely efficient mirrors needed for ultra-high power lasers are fantastically expensive and fragile enough that it's hopelessly impractical to try putting one on military gear.

Re:Missile defense

[j. andrew rogers]

No, you cannot defend a high-power laser by making a shiny missile. The whole point of using lasers of sufficient power is that even if you had a missile that was 90% reflective in infrared (which is at the upper end of what one could reasonably do for a missile), the power level is high enough that the last 10% of absorption is enough to ablate that lovely mirror finish and eat the missile. Note also, that most missiles guidance systems operate in the same part of the spectrum as the laser, which would make the pointy end have a very low reflectance by definition.

The reason for using very high-power lasers is the same they prefer to use hyper-kinetic missiles: at some energy density, no plausible molecular material has sufficient bond strength to withstand it, effectively obsoleting armor.

Link to DARPA

[Stanistani]

HELLAD DARPA PAGE [darpa.mil]

Re:Link to DARPA

[Stanistani]

Google is your friend...

From a DARPA PDF:
"To help arm tactical platforms, the High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS)
program is developing a new high energy laser (HEL) tactical weapon system whose unique
cooling system might allow the system to be 10 times lighter, significantly smaller, and
approximately half the cost of current developmental HEL systems.
The HELLADS design goal of less than 5 kilograms per kilowatt would enable, for the first time,
high energy lasers that could be integrated into several air and ground tactical platforms,
including unmanned combat armed rotorcraft (UCAR), UCAV, Predator B, the F/A-18, and
future ground combat systems. HELLADS could protect fixed installations or population centers
from attack, patrol a border, or patrol a demilitarized zone with the capability to react to hostile
actions and engage tactical missiles, rockets, or artillery at the speed of light."

This is from 2003, so this has been steeping for a while... is it soup yet?

SO will they go

[fromtheblueline]

Pew pew or Brzzap?

ouch

[pin_gween]

a 150-kW beam and capable of knocking down a missile will be ready by 2007

Hmmm, I'm torn.

On one hand, IF it hits its intended target, that is one less "consumable" missile defense that has to be manufactured and paid for--> not a "one and done" defense.

On the other, it's one thing when stray bullets strafe a school like in New Jersey, but oh my, imagine the holes this could leave.

measure your fridge from the air?

[phil4]

and measures the size of a large fridge. Cool! Lasers have been used for measurement before, but I bet this is the first time the military has been able to measure your fridge in your kitchen from 20,000 feet. The small hole in the kitchen ceiling is a small price to pay for this protection from oversize fridges.

JSF

[wiredlogic]

Some versions of the JSF will have a laser system installed in the empty cavity used for the second engine in the VSTOL variant. The last thing I read on this suggested that the firing rate would be once every 30 seconds due to cooling requirements. I doubt any F-16 based system mounted on external hard points would be any better.

Anti-satellite?

[Johnboi Waltune]

Can it knock out a satellite?

F-16 operating ceiling = 15.240 kilometers [danshistory.com]

Minimum LEO satellite altitude = about 150 kilometers [wikipedia.org]

I couldn't find any information about the range of the HELLADS system; that information is probably classified. However, TFA claims there will be a 150 kilowatt version of the laser by 2007. Any laser experts know if that power of laser can take out a target 135 kilometers away? Is the idea even feasible?

Re:Anti-satellite?

[imsabbel]

Very doubtful.
The f 16 will be above of >90% of the athmosphere at the ceiling hight, so absorbtion in the atmosphere isnt that big of a problem. But divergence is.
No matter what movies will make you believe, lasers arent perfectly parallel beams of light.
Not to go too much into the details, a laser needs to have a large diameter to have a low divergence (hence the used large telecopes for the moon reflection experiments: a 5m laser diameter here will be a few km on the moon, wile a few mm here will be 100s of km there ...)

I cant see how a jet-fighter mounted version would fullfill the requirements. The lens crossection has to be small enough not to fuck up the aerodynamics of the supersonic plane, and you cant just put a streamlines glasshood in front of hit because of the high pulse energies...

So you could get some light onto a satellite, but not enough to knock it out...
Otoh, I think it could be strong enough to permanently blind the CCDs of enemy spy-sats...

That Star Wars Feel

[fm6]

Now all we need to do is make fighter jets space worthy for that true Star Wars feel.

In Star Wars, fighters turn and bank as if they had working airfoils, instead of being in a vacuum. So to get that "Star Wars Feel" you have to stay in atmosphere!

what if it misses its target?

[Sebastopol]

will the pulses keep travelling in a straight line and vaporize whatever is in front of them on earth?

i mean, the laser has to be powerful enough to work at a distance of several km, and a plane is only several km off the ground. normally if a missile does not hit its target it detonates in midair (raining debris on the ground), but this seems a bit more problematic.

So what if it does?

[NotQuiteReal]

Where do you think non-laser anti-missle ordinance ends up if it misses?

Re:what if it misses its target?

[Tlosk]

"A plasma torch moving at mach 2+ is still a plasma torch."

Nice armchair logic. So when is a plasma torch no longer a plasma torch? When it no longer has the characteristics of a plasma torch. If you divide the energy output by the distance it covers while going mach 2 you get a really small amount of energy per square inch that doesn't last hardly any time at all for any given patch. Could you construct something that would still cause damage? Sure, but that would be orders of magnitude greater than the je

Re:what if it misses its target?

[tmortn]

Yes but that means a distinct focus on a point. If the firing vehicle were stationary then any miss would remain focused on a single point in front or behind the intended target. Other wise the distance and changing angles to intercept will dictate that a miss will wonder around with the intended focus point as the pivot, and in this case even the intended target is in motion so the pivot point changes as well.

At high angles the moving beam at the actual impact point (a miss) may be well ABOVE mach

Cool!

[Ancient_Hacker]

Cool if it works. But how does the laser know there's a missle on the way? And how does it keep focused on it while the pilot is trying to pull a 9-G turn? It would take gonads of neutronium to maintain a straight course while the missle is heading your way.

HELLADS

[sl4shd0rk]

High Energy Laser Area Defense System

I think Gasseous Optical Nuetral Area Defense System would have been a better name. What do you suppose would instill more fear in the enemy?

"Run for your life! The HELLADS are coming!" ...or

"Run for your life! The GONADS are coming!"

These Aren't Laser Cannons

[jonathanbearak]

I went to U.S. Airforce Space Readiness Briefing while I was a Congressional intern this summer.

Lasers were covered and I had a brief chat with the Air Force representative after the briefing.

The USAF is sticking lasers in 747's and the army is testing ground-based systems.

The aircraft-based lasers cannot inflict any physical damage. They are powerful enough to scramble electronics. The goal is to target a missile shortly after it is launched so that its guidance systems fail and the missile lands in the enemy's territory, never reaching its target (us). Their goal is to use this as a powerful deterrent by making it very risky to launch missiles.

The ground-based systems can inflict physical damage, but are nowhere close to being airborne (they're much too massive). They are, as I was told in July, still "in the lab." (I later saw a full-page ad in "The Hill," a capitol hill newspaper, promoting Lockheed Martin's ground-based laser systems as though they were about ready. I'll trust the USAF officer's discussion more than the corporate advertisement.)

A key misunderstanding of lasers is in the kind of damage they inflict. Lasers will poke holes through objects but do not cause a target's destruction or explosion -- however, shooting through or over-heating a target's fuel tank will cause an explosion. And of course, to re-emphasize my major point, we don't have airborne laser cannons --- their goal is basically to inflict a kind of EMP-like damage to missiles. I asked about getting these things into UAV's and was told they'd love to do it, but don't expect anything for another 50 years.

Re:Forbidden?

[PoitNarf]

I just did some quick searching and found only this on laser weaponry in the Geneva Convention:

"Protocol IV on Blinding Laser Weapons prohibits the use of laser weapons specifically designed to cause permanent blindness to the naked eye (or to the eye with corrective eyesight devices). Countries that are party to the Convention and Protocols will not transfer such weapons to any country or other entity."

So I guess to conform to the Geneva Convention, the lasers will just require the same stickers that they put on childrens water guns: "Point Away From Face"

Re:Forbidden?

[forkazoo]

No, to conform to the geneva convention, it just has to be powerful enough to kill you outright. The issue is blinding lasers. They would be classified as maiming weapons, and thus not really cricket. If it blows your head clear off, then it's all fine and dandy.

Re:Forbidden?

[Sebastopol]

To quote a friend from the Israeli army that is sort-of relevant:

"M16's are not designed to kill, they are designed to maim, because a wounder soldier is more of a liability to the enemy than a dead one."

But we still use M16s... odd... (well, WE use M2's or something like that)

Re:Forbidden?

[aaronl]

The modern M16 fires a 5.56x45mm NATO round, while the previous generation (original AR15 platform) used a .223 caliber Remington round. The NATO round is a very standard round used in quite a few weapons. The newest weapon in wide use is actually the M4, which is also based on the AR15 platform.

The M2 is a retired weapon, and pretty much has been since the 60s. The AR15/M16 was adopted to replace it then. It wasn't really accepted until the 80s, however.

The 5.56mm NATO round is also used by the Steyr AUG, FN FNC, British L85, FAMAS F1, HK23/53, the Israeli SAW and TAR21, several Berettas, and the standard police rifle (Remington 7615). There are quite a few more than those, though, these are just popular.

The older 7.62mm NATO round was used in a lot of weapons, including the M14, M60, Kar-98k, and the Winchester model 70. It was very popular, as well.

The M16 isn't designed to maim, but they are easy to do this with. They are rather accurate, have a good range, and don't do full auto. One of the major design goals of the platform was penetration of combat helmets at range. It was designed to kill, like most other modern firearms. The general exception to that rule is for things like PDWs, where the goal is defense of wielder. They will still kill very effectively, but you're aiming a lot less.

Re:Forbidden?

[TheWizardOfCheese]

The M2 is a retired weapon, and pretty much has been since the 60s.

I don't know why the M2 is coming up in this thread about rifles, since it is a .50 cal machine gun. Although initially adapted for infantry use in 1921 (from an earlier aircraft weapon), derivatives of ma deuce are still in service today.

See http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg04-e.htm [world.guns.ru] for details.

Re:Forbidden?

[Bender0x7D1]

The problem at that range usually isn't the accuracy of the weapon, but the accuracy of the shooter.

At that kind of range, the only way to hit a small, say 6-12 inch target, is to be in the prone position, with proper hand position, proper eye relief to the scope/sight, and shooting between breaths AND heartbeats.

I was a Marine designated marksman and even after sniper school the biggest factor was still the shooter and not the accuracy of the weapon. There are VERY few people who possess the skill to

Re:Forbidden?

[twiddlingbits]

I won't disagree! But a LOT of people THINK they are. Most deer rifles in these parts (TX) are zeroed at 300 yards but most shots are not taken at that distance and if they are most are misses. I wonder how many hunters know the charts showing the drop of thier shot at each distance with a given bullet and powder weight. I'd be lucky to consistently hit a 6" bullseye at 100 yards unless I was shooting from a bench or maybe the prone position. I'm just not that solid standing.

Re:Forbidden?

[tekiegreg]

Well yeah, but one can reason that If your head is blown off, than by law of unintended consequences you'll be rendered blind? Can you be dead and blind at the same time? Granted the inability to see properly (aka blindness) is inherent in most dead people. Or must one be living in order to be blind?

Re:Forbidden?

[MrVelvet]

Yes one must be fucking living to be blind. Just like telling no tales, the dead don't see shit..

Re:Forbidden?

[StikyPad]

It's not the Geneva convention, it's the Hague convention, and the relevant part is "In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden - ... To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;" http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague04 .htm#art23 [yale.edu]. Maybe you're thinking of the Geneva Protocol to the Hague Convention which outlaws biological and chemical warfare? The Geneva convention mostly outlines basic minimum treatment of enemy POWs.

Re:Forbidden?

[Kjella]

No, to conform to the geneva convention, it just has to be powerful enough to kill you outright.

That's not entirely accurate. A dum dum bullet to my heart would kill me as easily as a FMJ bullet. It just so happens that unless you kill, you're likely to leave a maimed person. Same with lasers, it doesn't matter if the laser is strong enough to kill, if it means someone who managed to duck for cover, or everyone that was around and looked at its reflection go blind. While obviously an ideal that can never be

Re:Forbidden?

[indifferent children]

Not by design. As with Assualt Rifles, it sometimes happens that landmines maim rather than kill, but (unlike blinding weapons) landmines were not designed to be non-lethal (hence the high-explosive and shrapnel).

Re:Forbidden?

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

I don't think the Geneva convention includes energy weapons, it dates back to pre-world war 2 I believe.

You may be thinking about weapons in space, if I remember correctly the USA and Russia agreed not to militarise space, which essentially meant no orbitting satellites with either lasers on them or nuclear missiles. (it may have taken kinetic weapons into account too, i'm not sure on that)

Re:Forbidden?

[tjw]

Weren't they forbidden by the Geneva convention?

They're probably only for firing at "unlawful combatants", so it's OK.

Re:Forbidden?

[DoubleD]

No.

Article 1 of the Geneva Convention's Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons has laudable aims. It states, "It is prohibited to employ laser weapons specifically designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced vision."

But Article 3 opens the door to lasers that blind so long as that was not their aim. It states: "Blinding as an incidental or collateral effect of the legitimate military employment of laser systems, including laser systems used against optical equipment, is not covered by the prohibition of this Protocol".

source http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2585 [newscientist.com]

Re:Forbidden?

[Jim_Callahan]

Hey, I can fully support a policy of "If you're going to kill someone, stop jacking around and kill them". The whole "incapacitate people so that they wander off to die of starvation and a twisted ankle in a ditch" thing just seems rather sloppy.

Re:Forbidden?

[Rei]

For all of the people who criticize your "mirrors" proposal: ablatives.

You can even combine defensive concepts. Missiles being relatively small, relatively mass produced items, processes that normally cost a lot can be proportionally cheap compared to the cost of the guidance systems, propulsion system, and handling costs. So, for a multipart defensive system:

  * A "shiny" ablative system on the nosecap and leading edge fins - perhaps something as simple as silicon-impregnated cork mixed with aluminum, silver, or gold (better at IR) powder.

  * The nosecap and leading-edge fins made of silvered (again, with a good visible/IR reflecting material) RCC (again, since they're small and the process to make them can be automated, the costs shouldn't unreasonable). RCC can take extreme temperatures without becoming ductile.

  * Other parts of the body made out of unpainted, shiny aluminum or a silvered surface.

It's less extreme than other defensive mechanisms used for various kinds missiles - MIRVed warheads, anti-ship missiles that hug the water and then take a sharp climb and descent, etc. And it's certainly simpler than many of the counter-countermeasure methods used by modern missiles.

Re:Forbidden?

[tsotha]

Good post. One other thing you might consider too:

When "Star Wars" was heavily funded in the '80s, the Russians did a little bit of investigation into what it would take to thwart both kinetic vehicles and energy weapons. The actually deployed the Topol-M [armscontrol.org], which has a lower arc and "jinks" in-flight, makeing it almost impossible to hit with another missile. It takes so long for your interceptor to get to the intercept point that a really tiny course deflection on the part of the target means you'll miss by a hundred miles.

On the energy side they came up with ablatives (which could be refitted to existing missiles) with, literally, a twist.

Since you have to hold the laser on a specific spot for some length of time (governed by the power of the laser, atmospherics, etc), you could significantly enhance the survivability of the missile by having it slowly rotate during the launch phase. We're talkin' about a reasonably simple software change that makes it 10x harder to shoot down with a laser.

Re:Forbidden?

[aonaran]

The lasers use mirrors. The mirrors in the laser have to be able to withstand the energy of the laser. Therefore there IS a mirror that can reflect the laser without absorbing enough of it to do damage.

Re:Forbidden?

[aonaran]

By the same token the other big SciFi myth of the 80's ...the acid spitting alien that creates an acid that can burn through anything in seconds doesn't work either... how does the alien survive if it's acid burns trough anything (including aliens of the same species)?

Re:Forbidden?

[Stonehand]

It's easier to keep the mirror clean and highly reflective inside the laser, than outside and on a battlefield.

Re:Top Gun

[Nom du Keyboard]

I'm too close for Missles Goose, I'm switching to Lasers!

I'm too close for lasers, switching to Scientology.

Hello Mr. Enemy Pilot, may I Audit you?

Re:Top Gun

[Tackhead]

> I'm too close for Missles Goose, I'm switching to Lasers!
> I'm too close for lasers, switching to Scientology.
> Hello Mr. Enemy Pilot, may I Audit you?

Maveric: You don't know the history of frickin' lasers on sharks' heads. I do!
Goose: We regret to inform you that your son is broke because he is stupid.

Re:Top Gun

[Oligonicella]

"I believe in Intelligent Design. It was all done by Benevolent Space Aliens. How else can you explain Tom Cruise?"

You call that benevolent?

Re:Compact?

[Elminst]

Not really.

It'd be smaller than a 370 gallon external fuel pod.

No one said it was gonna be shaped like a cement block.

Re:Great...

[CharlieG]

According to someone I know who worked on the orignal "Star Wars" research, he says the big mistake everyone makes is that they thing that the high power lasers melt things - he said "Nope, they are actually kinetic weapons - says you put enough energy in a laser beam (think high power pulsed) the slug of energy acts like a kinetic impact"

OT: Re:OTOH

[subtropolis]

Everything the US did in Europe in the last century was seen as in the best interests of the US. Many Europeans found that that suited them just fine and have been forever grateful. But to suggest that 'Europe' has any obligation to the US is stupid. There were no US towns firebombed. It wasn't US citizens of being herded into camps outside Tulsa. Tanks didn't obliterate an entire county in Virginia.

Fact is, 'Europe' knows what all that shit is about. And too many in the US don't have a fucking clue. Tie

Re:OTOH

[Mac Degger]

"If Europe would pay back the US for are protection, then we could diverta Lot of tax payer money into other things."

Ah! Now I understand why the US is trying to force it's RI/MPAA and copyright/patent laws on Europe!

"europe used to be as bad as the middle east."

True...but that was in the 18th century...about when you had some unrest too.

"a powerfull laser could also make air warfare obsolete."

Yup...just like missiles made dogfighting obsolete.

"[x] is actualy saving lives because it is incredibly more accur